There are those who will counsel you to avoid heartbreak, and it’s understandable enough. Heartbreak is awful, and painful, and can call into question all that one has done or believed or trusted in the past. Avoiding that feeling, for many, seems like the most reasonable goal one can imagine. What they fail to acknowledge, those who offer this advice, is this:
All hearts are broken. All hearts are scarred. All hearts labor to work in spite of the damage done to them by careless words or by intentional betrayal or by unforgiving circumstance.
Those who say “avoid heartbreak” are really saying, “Don’t let it happen again.” They’re saying, “Stop the bleeding.” But the heart’s purpose is to bleed. Its duty is endure, and to demonstrate resilience. Its function is to open again and again and again in spite of the wounds inflicted.
A secret: If the heart can open, then the mind can open. If the mind can open, then the soul can follow suit. For the mind has to be convinced, and the soul has to be taught, but the heart? The heart fulfills its destiny with each opening. It is not itself when it is closed off, however tempting that closure may be.
All hearts are broken. All hearts are wounded. All hearts long to persevere. Hail to those scars, and to our hearts that endure.